Dangerous buses being used to ferry hundreds of children to school have been banned from the road.

A police operation codenamed Coachman has led to 11 school buses in Co Durham being given immediate prohibition notices.

Detectives swooped as part of a joint crackdown on hazardous buses with Durham County Council.

Almost 200 vehicles were stopped and checked and 11 found to be hazardous.

Officers immediately banned them from carrying the kids and ordered the vehicles off the roads.

The most serious faults included worn tyres, broken brake lights and one even had defective brakes.

Another 10 drivers were told to correct minor faults immediately.

However, the situation was an improvement on last year when similar checks led to twice the number of buses being banned.

Insp Alan Hutchinson, of Durham police traffic section, said: "There were over 200 minibuses, coaches and private hire vehicles check-ed and we also targeted special schools to see if the conditions of school regulations to carry such children were being met.

"We found 11 to be unsafe. That is 11 too many where children's safety is concerned, this is serious.

"However, we found 95 per cent of vehicles checked to be OK. This must be balanced with the ones that were not safe and given prohibition notices.

"Eleven vehicles with faults is too many and we would like to see that figure reduced. It is an improvement on last year and we will be planning on doing more checks. We found the majority of operators take their work very seriously and meet all requirements."

He added: "Part of the checks were to see if the conditions of contractors with special schools had been fulfilled, if they had the helpers on board and if the children were being carried in the correct manner. We are pleased to say they all were."

A Durham County Coun-cil spokeswoman said: "Around 200 vehicles were stopped and out of those 11 were put off the road. However, we have to keep this in perspective and that figures is a lot less than the year before.

"More vehicles were checked this year than previous years and less vehicles were found with faults.

"We are not releasing the names of the operators who were found to have faults on their vehicles because investigations are still being carried out."